Colourful Dog
“Bunter Hund”, literally translated, means multicoloured dog and you may ask why on earth my friends and I were talking about one of these!
Well, simple! We were having a conversation about being conspicuous and self-conscious – the idiom “sticking out like a sore thumb” came to mind. We agreed that this was the English equivalent for “Bunter Hund”. In English it can have negative connotations.
An example could be:
“Everyone else was wearing smart clothes and I was in jeans and a T-shirt – I stuck out like a sore thumb.”
Maybe a more neutral alternative is to describe someone as “standing out a mile“- which suggests that something/one is easily recognisable or is distinguishable for a distance.
For example:
The twins’ resemblance stood out a mile.
Motley Mutt
Another word for “bunt” is “motley” and implies that something has been thrown together (zusammengeworfen). You may have heard of a “motley crew”: a diverse group of people.
How about a “motley mutt“? An expression I just threw together!!
Mutt is a name specifically used to describe a dog which is a mongrel or not a pure-breed. What a horrible expression! It probably reminds you of a muggle in Harry Potter.
There are some interesting ways of referring to a dog of unknown ancestry:
- “Heinz 57 dog“: named after the slogan *”57 Varieties” which was used by a famous baked beans producer.
- “Senfhund” or Mischling: the origin of which I won’t go into:)
Variety of Life
I think this proverbial saying, which was originally a quotation from a poem written in 1785, still rings true today:
Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour.
William Cowper
Cheers to life’s variety pack!
*57 is still to be seen on a certain brand of ketchup and was supposedly the combination of H.J.Heinz and his wife’s lucky numbers.
